Monday, March 28, 2016

Semana Increíble.


Hola Familia Y Amigos, 

This week was a fantastic week for us here in Zona Canto Grande. For P. Day, it was just a normal working day because on Wednesday we had the wonderful opportunity to go to the temple.
It was a fantastic experience. We woke up early and took the train to the temple.
The temple was amazing, and it was so beautiful and peaceful inside. 
We are so glad that we had the opportunity to go. 
After the session, we had the opportunity to help out a bit in the sealing room, so that was a fantastic but rather “trunkey" experience! haha. 
It was a great day in the temple. 

We had an AWESOME lesson that night.
We visited a family that we had contacted in the marketplace, 
when my companion went to go get his pants hemmed.
THEY ARE PURE GOLD. They absolutely loved our message,
and there are four of them. Hilda, Janice, Xiarra, and Cristian. 
They listened so intently and we really felt the Spirit as we taught them. 
Teaching them was an incredible experience. After that we had a lesson with Karina, and we took out the baptismal date for the 16th of April, and she is super excited to be baptized.

To top off the perfect night, when we got to our room, President Erickson called and said he was going to take us to lunch the next day. Score!! We had a tasty lunch with President and Hermana Erickson, the Assistants, and a couple other missionaries from the Zone.  Every now and then he takes people to lunch, it is so nice of him.  I had some tasty Cabrito a la norteña (lamb cooked with vegetables and spices until tender), which is a super famous Peruvian dish. 
There was a good appetizer of canchita serrana con chifles. Cabrito means goat.  It was a nice restaurant.  My plate cost 35 soles, which really is only something like eleven bucks but here in Perú that buys a plate that is like Market Street Grill quality. 

I did a good work visit with Elder Rivas. We contacted a really cool new Investigator, and she has a lot of potential. We also had the best tacacho  (a roasted banana Amazonian cuisine dish from Peru. It is usually served with bits of pork) I have ever had in my life! Super tasty. 

This week was the Semana Santa, a super famous Catholic holiday that is basically like Easter for the Latino Americans
It was a good week centered in Jesus Christ.

That is about all that is new for us here in good ol´ Perú.
 Oh by the way, tomorrow I am getting a new companion,
 a gringo named Elder Bradford. 
We are pretty good friends and so it should be a good experience. 
Thanks for everything you do, and I love ya´ll tons! 
Have a fantastic week. 

Con mucho cariño, 
Elder Reschke.

P.S. I attached a picture of my companion burning all the letters from his girlfriend back home who “Dear John-ed" him. 
It was a glorious moment!

Questions Elder Reschke answered this week:

How was your Easter yesterday?
I have a confession to make....I thought Easter was NEXT Sunday! Isn’t it always the first Sunday in April or the same Sunday as General Conference? Nobody in Perú celebrates Easter. They celebrate Semana Santa, or Holy Week in English. Its like a huge Catholic holiday remembering Jesus Christ. So, my Semana Santa was good, but I was getting ready for Easter next Sunday!! Oh well. 

We have a big snow storm here in Utah right now. 
What is your weather like?
It is Soooooooooooooo Hotttttttttttttttttt here!

Are you being careful not to drink the water?
Haha don’t worry Mom, all is well.
It’s common knowledge around here that you don’t drink tap water.

Dropping off laundry:
                                                                    Love this view:


                           My companion received a "Dear John".....it was a glorious moment:
                                             The temple is so beautiful and peaceful:










Monday, March 21, 2016

On Top of the World!

Hola Familia Y Amigos!

  Hope all is well with everybody. We had a good week here in Canto Grande
For P. Day, last Monday, we went hiking, which was fun. We took motos up the
this really cool little trail that led to the top of the hill and from there 
you could see the other side of the mission, the ocean, etc. 
It was a super good view. 
Everyone who didn’t go got super jealous and wished they would have gone:) 

But yeah all is well here in the Zone. On Tuesday I gave a training to get the Zone a little more pumped because everybody seemed kinda down in the dumps. I gave a comparison to a mile race, and how every six months in the mission is like a lap of the mile race, and it led to a really good discussion on how everybody needs to start strong, stay with the pack, and in the last lap when they hear the bell they just gotta take off and give it their all to finish strong. Everybody really liked it, and afterwards one of the missionaries who is in the last lap came up to me and said, "Thank you for that, that helped me a lot." So that was good to hear.

     As far as the Investigators go, we are teaching a family that is every missionary´s dream to teach: Father, Mother, and their two kids. They are called the Familia P., and they are awesome. They always give us Chicha or Inca Kola, and this week the Hermana is going to cook Cuy for us:) They are awesome and we are going to help them get married so they can get baptized. We have to contact their little village in La Libertad to be able to get their birth certificates. No problema:)

We also found a really cool Investigator named Fanny, who has a lot of potential. More to come on her next week....But April is looking like it is going to be a good month.

     So something that happened yesterday was like the most awkward moment of my life, but it was cool. So we were at Stake Conference, and Elder Montoya from the Seventy was there giving a talk. My companion and I had to take care of some matters with some of the other missionaries in the Zone and we were walking from the building where the classrooms are to the big tent outside where the overflow was watching the Stake Conference. On the way to the tent, we had to walk past the chapel where the seventy was inside giving his talk. Suddenly, the doors open and the ushers come out and start motioning toward us and, they say, "The General Authority is calling you guys! He wants you to come in and go up on the stand!" And we were so confused and panicked for a second because we thought he was going to publicly chew us out or something for not sitting down. So they ushered us inside and we went up on the stand and stood right next to him, and it turns out he was talking about missionary work and just wanted two visual aids. He said something that really stood out...he said that “we will always love our missions and that we are going to cry when the day comes that we have to take off our nametags". Ouch! That hurt, but it is so true.
I love the mission with all my heart.

I love the people of Perú with all my heart. I can’t even begin to describe the happiness that I feel as I share the Gospel with our brethren, the Lamanites. 
I know without a doubt that this church is true. 
I love you all so much, and I hope you all have a fantastic week.

Love, Elder Reschke.

P.S. Hehe my Companion almost got ran over by an ice cream lady selling ice cream on her little bicycle cart. 
Haha it was funny because she came up from behind
and yelled: HERMAANNNOOOOO!!!!!!
It was her fault not his though! 

Questions Elder Reschke answered this week:
You have a new niece this week, little Lily.  What do you think of her?
Lily is super adorable!  Glad she was born just fine!

*Note from Mom (This makes 1 niece and 2 nephews that Elder Reschke has not met yet - Miles, Jack, and Lily.)

Did you get the package we sent?
Yes and the Girl Scout cookies did not melt and they are super tasty:)
All the other snacks were good too.  Thank you so much.

Did you like the pictures we sent?  And who has changed the most in 19 months?
Loved the pictures and Abigail has changed the most.

Miracle of the week?
Miracle of the week is that we were able to get ahold of the little village where the birth certificate is.

Scripture of the week?
Matthew 11: 28-29:
28. “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and iI will give you rest.
29. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meed and lowly in heart; and ye shall find rest unto your souls.”

What are you doing for P. Day today?
Today is a regular working day because we are going to the temple Wednesday.


A little tineda (store)  in the hills before starting on the trail:
                                                                   Hiking up the trail:
                                                             At the top of the trail:

                                                                View from the top:
                                                       Looking out on the world:
                                    Yes of course we brought the Book of Mormon with us:
                                                  Beautiful Peruvian flag that we love:
                                                            The trail up the mountain:
                                          Look,  a house at the top of the mountain:
                                                                     Top of the world:
                                                The brave group that made it to the top:

Monday, March 14, 2016

She Finally Got Baptized!

Hola Padres y Amigos!! 

Twas a good week for us here in good ol´ Canto Grande. We had a fun P. Day last Monday. We rented out a big nice soccer field, and hired a guy to make tacos for the whole Zone. 
When we went to pick up the tacos, he gave us some Enchiladas and Chicha Morada 
(Peruvian beverage made from purple corn. It is usually made by boiling the corn with pineapple, cinnamon, clove, and sugar) on the house while we waited. Score! But yeah it was a pretty chill week. 

On Tuesday I went on a work visit to Las Lomas and we had a good visit, finding some new people to teach. I met a nice member lady whose native language is Quechua
She learned Quechua even before she learned Spanish. Cool huh?
Wednesday we did a good but tiring service project, moving a whole pile 
of sand to somebody’s roof. 
That is my favorite type of service. 

Thursday we had to travel to Limatambo, which is the oldest stake center in Perú. 
It is where Gordon B. Hinckley went to establish the first stake in Perú, so that was kind of neat. The reason we went there is because we had a visit from two general authorities, Elder Uceda and Elder Lynn Robbins from the Seventy. It was a good meeting, and I learned a lot about how the mission prepares us for life and shapes us and molds us. Before the meeting I met up with my comp from the MTC, Elder Fullmer who is serving in the Lima East Mission, one of the "Richest missions in Lima" or so they say. 

Friday was solid, and had a good day working with Elder Beazer in my area. 
Saturday, the zone helped out with the Missionary Preparation Young Men’s activity,
 and we each got assigned some priests to work with and we took them to work hard in our areas. It was fun, and we met a lot of really cool new people. 

Saturday evening we had another baptism. We baptized Hermana R., who was SUPER happy to be baptized because she has been investigating the church for a really long time.
 She even has a son in the mission field. It was a very sweet experience, and like always, my favorite part was hearing her testimony afterwards. It was a hectic but very good day for us. 

Yesterday was a good day as well. I gave a talk in church, which was good.
 I told a story about Elder Cook from a good BYU talk called “Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ”. 

     We are super excited (my Companion and I), because in this moment we have a lot of people in our little bank of families that we are teaching. They are learning a lot and progressing very well, and if all goes as planned, we should have at least 6 baptisms in the month of April. 
We are going to keep working hard, and giving all that we have to the Lord.

Love you all so much, and I hope you all have a fantastic week. 
Love,
Elder Reschke. 

P.S. Not gonna lie I can’t think of a good P.S.,
but I write a P.S. every week,
so I don’t wanna break the streak now. 

Questions Elder Reschke answered this week:

Miracle of the week?
The miracle is that Sister R.  finally got baptized.

Scripture of the week?
Scripture of the week is:  
Luke 6:12, and it is dedicated to Dad:
“And it came to pass in those days, 
that he went out into a mountain to pray, 
and continued all night in prayer to God.”

Transfers are next week, any idea what will happen?
Nope, no transfers this next week.  This transfer is the special 7 week transfer instead of 6 weeks because the Latinos are going to be in the MTC for three weeks instead of two.  
So we still have two more weeks to go of this transfer.  

We want to go to the Peruvian restaurant here again, any suggestions of what to order?
Lomo Saltado, Adobu, Papa rellena, Chaufa, Milanesa, etc.

What are your plans for P. Day today?
We are going to hike up a Cerro (hill) and take pictures with the Peruvian flag. 
And don’t worry Mom, we won’t fall off, it is not a cliff, but more of like a dusty pile of dirt.

Have you eaten any really good food lately?
We ate some really good cabrito norteno the other day.  
Super tasty.

Have you gotten any letters in the mail lately?  I have been sending you letters each week through the pouch?
The last letter I got was from Kylee, a couple of weeks back.
And every now and then one from Lizzy.  
I haven’t gotten one from you in a while..maybe somebody stole the pouch..haha!

Are you happy?
Yes.  To tell you the truth, Elder Rodriguez is one of my best friends. 
We get along VERY VERY well! 
                                                  


  Me and the Cerros (hills):
                                  A nice lady I met this week. Her Native tongue is Quechua.
                                  She didn't even learn Spanish until she was 15 years old (so cool):

                                       Moses!  (A.K.A. Elder Rodriguez) making me laugh.
                                       In the morning, while we were getting ready for the day,
                                       he came out of the bathroom dressed like Moses!  Hahahaha:




                                                            Baptism of Hermana R.:


                                When we were in the clerks office looking for computer paper,
                                 we lifted up the cabinet lid and found these two pieces of cake,
                                          ready to be eaten by two hungry missionaries.
                                                     It was tempting, but we didn't eat it:

Monday, March 7, 2016

I saw another llama!

Hola Familia Y Amigos. 

Well it was a good week here in the Zona Canto Grande. We went to Chili´s for P. Day, and moreover, I saw the third Llama that I have ever seen in Perú (his name is Pepe) and he got mad and charged at me, but luckily there was a wooden fence. Pepe kind of has a temper. 

Also, we were in this ladies house and she´s like "look at this" and brings out this REAL human skull. We have no idea who he was, all we know is that this skull has been in the family for like a really long time. But anyway that was interesting, because the majority of the people I’ve met don’t just have a human skull lying around. 

       We had a good monthly goal meeting, and we also had our monthly leadership council meeting. It was a good meeting, and everyone is excited to work hard this month. 

Went on a good work visit with Elder Connolly, and we found a cool little tienda that had a bunch of Chocolate from Venezuela. ¡Que Rico! (How rich!)

We also had the baptism of Milagros on Saturday. It was a really good baptismal service, and she was excited to be the newest member of the church. We were able to take out a baptismal date with our investigator Rocio, for this coming Saturday, and she is VERY excited to be baptized. 

     So I had a little side project this week...I have to obtain a birth certificate from a little tiny jungle village in Amazonas. So, I looked up the number of the village and called it. It happened to be a public phone, but some guy answered and I was like “We need your help!” SO now I have a new friend named Audoberto that lives in a tiny little village in the jungle and is going to help us obtain the birth certificate.

The life lesson I learned this week was from one of the senior missionaries who has graduated from Harvard Business College. During a taxi ride to the leadership meeting we got to talking and he told me that to have success in life,you just need to ask questions...you never know! That is what we did with this jungle village, and if all goes as planned we will get the birth certificate so this family can get married.

     For P. Day, we found a guy and hired him to make Tacos for the whole Zone. So, we took everyone’s order and promised tacos to everybody. We call the guy like 20 times and he doesn’t answer his phone. We are thinking "Shoot...the Zone is going to be mad if they don’t get their tacos!!!" So, Elder Rodriguez and I, being the solution searchers that we are, were able to find another guy to make the tacos. Phew! We escaped that dart! hehe.

     Anyway, hope all is well. I wanted to take a moment to thank each and every one of you for being the examples that you are. I am so grateful to be a missionary, and for the many insights and help I have received from all of you.
The church is so true, I know it with all my heart. 
I hope you all have a fantastic week. 

Love,
Elder Reschke. 


A necklace I tried on at the marketplace:
(More details on it below.)
                                                                           Meetings:
                                                                  Hi from the Zone:
                                                                          Our Zone:
                                                                   Piano practice:
                                                                    Elder Reschke:


                                                   Pepe, the llama with an attitude:
                                           Llama in Peru.  (The one on the left is the llama):
                                                    The skull our investigator showed us:
                                     This skull has been in a lady's family for a long time:

                                                             Baptism of Milagros:
                                                              Baptism of Milagros:
                                                                 Baptism on Saturday:
                                          Necklace from the jungle made with anaconda bones,
                                          colorful jungle bird feathers, and a dried Piraña head.
                                                            It is pretty awesome looking: